Jamie Fellner

Senior adviser at Human Rights Watch, Jamie Fellner, discusses her new report, “Callous and Cruel: Use of Force Against Inmates with Mental Disabilities in US Jails and Prisons.” 

Jamie Fellner, senior advisor to the US Program at Human Rights Watch, discusses how federal prosecutors routinely threaten extraordinarily severe prison sentences to coerce drug defendants into waiving their right to trial and pleading guilty. She’s the author of a Human Rights Watch report “An Offer You Can’t Refuse: How US Federal Prosecutors Force Drug Defendants to Plead Guilty.”

Jamie Fellner, a Senior Advisor, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch, talks about the soaring number of aging prisoners. The Human Rights Watch report “Old Behind Bars: The Aging Prison Population in the United States” documents the dramatic increases in the number of older U.S. prisoners and the need for the prison system to adapt.

 

Jamie Fellner, Senior Counsel, US Program, Human Rights Watch explains how bails are set and the role of bondsmen how bail penalizes the poor.

Jamie Fellner, Senior Counsel at Human Rights Watch's US Program, talks about her new report "The Price of Freedom" on the iniquities in the city's bail system.

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed a new law mandating police departments across the state to send rape kits to the Illinois State Police laboratory or an approved lab within 10 business days of acquiring the evidence. Illinois is the first state to pass such a law, which will go in to effect on October 1st. State officials hope that more and faster scrutiny of evidence will increase the number of arrests for such cases, which now stand at only 11 percent: The national average is 22 percent. Similar laws have increased arrests in other cities, including New York and Los Angeles.